


Limbo

by inlovewithnight



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-10
Updated: 2010-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 04:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set post-"At World's End."  Spoilers.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Limbo

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-"At World's End." Spoilers.

Time moves differently on the Dutchman.

That was one of the few surprising things about Will's new life, or rather his death; he had expected wonder, to accompany all the magic. He had expected madness. Instead, there is mainly monotony. Endless seas and endless stars and never a shortage of souls needing his guidance to their new horizon.

Sometimes an hour will stretch on for what feels like eternity as he stares out over eternal waves that don't move _quite_ as his eyes expect, even as he grows accustomed to his task. Other times days pass in a blur that might as well be minutes. There is no rhyme or reason to it that he can find, and in the end he has no other choice but to accept his father's blank stare and simple words: _Time moves differently here._

The rest of the crew, their burden lifted, moved on to the other side, and so it is just him and Bootstrap aboard the Dutchman, two bodies to fill her eerie spaces and silences. The ship sails herself, when she's kept to her proper rounds; the two of them are one more than what's necessary.

And so Bootstrap mainly watches, hovers and waits and _watches_ until Will has to invent a reason to send him away. The man is his father, yes, but he is learning too late how hollow a word that is for a man he never truly knew until they both were no better than dead. They never address one another by name or relation; with just the two of them to speak, "you" suffices for everything.

Will sends his father away without saying his name or meeting his eyes, because Bootstrap's eyes always find and linger on the scar that cuts across Will's chest, the deep and twisted gash that binds him here. There's something hungry in his stare, and it's more than Will can stand. While he is the Dutchman's captain now, and so beyond death or harm, he remembers both his life and his death, and the horrible moments where they intersected. He remembers his father coming toward him, eyes wide and glazed and fixed, knife in hand, ravaged voice chanting that horrible rhythm.

_Part of the crew, part of the ship._

He remembers cold hands, not all of which had skin, pulling his shirt away and holding him down, even though he was dead and couldn't move, couldn't fight them off even if he wasn't bound by Calypso's ancient bargain. Old as the seas, he thinks. There must have been another ferryman, before Davy Jones, his name forgotten to time and tide, as Will Turner will be forgotten some day.

He remembers his father plunging that knife into his chest, the sound it made sliding through muscle and bone, the white-hot pain; for all that he was already dead, the goddess would have her price in suffering, it seemed. He remembers it all, and if he had any need to sleep here in his kingdom under the other world's waves, he's sure the horror would drive him from his dreams.

As it is, it drives him away from Bootstrap, and into the ornate, absurd captain's cabin alone. He never touches the organ; can't stand the thing. Davy Jones' trophies and playthings hold no interest for long. He has memories, he has wishes, he has eternity and his task to do.

He has Elizabeth's broken whisper after he asked how he could trust her-- _"You can't"_\-- and he has cold doubt coiling deep in his stomach, as hard as he tries to deny it. He fights that memory with others-- her hand in his as they danced across the deck, swords flashing and Barbossa's intoxicated roar breaking over them like waves. Her skin warm and golden under his on the island beach on their one day. Her voice saying his name one final time.

He has hope, for what that's worth. Once he was a boy who stood on piers and watched the ships come in for hours. Once he was a man who made swords, over and over again in search of perfection. Once he loved, and once he promised, and once...twice...he kept his word.

And now he gathers the souls of the dead up from the waters where they lie, and helps them over the waves to their rest. If he does well, he may yet be rewarded; stranger things have happened, after all. He saw many of them with his own eyes.

On the other side of the sea and the stars, Barbossa and Jack and Elizabeth are still chasing horizons, he knows, whatever else they might do. The East India Company is still chasing money. Humanity is still chasing its fears and hopes and dreams.

And Will Turner waits. For as long as he is needed, and one day more.


End file.
